Eclipse Imbalanced
Cryptor
Riga Join Date: 2013-10-15 Member: 188707Members
Riga Join Date: 2013-10-15 Member: 188707Members
After playing few games of eclipse the map seems to be alien sided. Haven't seen marines win even one time. Last game I played after the marine team lost they immediately voted for a different map. Everyone said how the map is imbalanced and that it "sucks". ( I have played eclipse about 6 times )
Comments
Most pubs don't have such marines, and will allow aliens 2 easy hives and 4 RTs without much trouble, so they will win loads more.
You could call this a map problem I suppose, but it seems to me that marines have a fair chance of winning of they don't ignore certain requirements. In fact, if they go super aggressive, and get a phase gate in southern positions like south loop or comp core, then suddenly they have the huge advantage.
You simply build alpha access regardless though, with the plan that every time a certain marine spawns, you have him walk through that room to zone any skulks. (its the easiest room to defend in the game I think)
This way, you have the naturals on the side you immediately conquered (1 shared natural) and the base rt, giving a minium of 3. If you can keep zoning alpha access, that's four.
Now just pressure alien rts and you'll be just fine
It's all about economy. Attack the opposing team's rts, defend your own (usually in that order of importance). If they don't have res they can't tech up. So many pub players seem to have absolutely no idea.
If Marines put enough pressure with 2 or 3-man squads, the aliens have to defend (and stop attacking extractors so much).
It really is a matter of people being more aggressive as Marines on pub games.
If aliens spawn in eclipse, you hot foot it to generators and be as much of a pain in the backside as possible. Having 3 Marines bum rushing your safest harvester really gives the khamm a headache and makes expansion difficult. That allows a couple of marines an easier time of capping the rest of the map.
It's like close spawns on summit. Marines in sub, aliens in data core? Send 3 Marines through cross into reactor. Pub aliens don't know how to respond to that
It's not a piece of cake for marines. You have to work hard at first, but then aliens have no chance. Standard pub tactics = marines lose.
Core access being the easiest to hold.
I agree with Roo, though, marines just get into this "build up" mentality instead of "run straight to their natural harvesters and kill them above all else" offensive mentality that is needed. Just remember the way this game is designed (ever since BT mod) .. its a time game for marines - beat the clock. (also its important to find that early gorge tunnel, its pretty much a guarantee that it exists)
Though I go and hit RTs all the time, I can see why this is the case for a small portion of the community - many commanders just won't support you with ammo etc and if you knife the thing it's so easy to get ambushed and killed. It gets quite frustrating, actually...
That being said, all things equal, the map is EXTREMELY alien-favored with most straights less than half of straights on other maps, and an abundance of vents which haven't even begun to be abused by gorges (that I've seen anyway).
My guess is that the A:M win ratio (on average, since with ståx, anything is possible) will always be in the 75:25% range.
Blame:
- Canada
- The engine with high inDERPolation and people with 300 ping lëling from Australia
- The extreme lack of teamwork on most pub games, preventing marines from using shotguns which should be prevalent on Eclipse, unlike other maps.
Maintenance Hive, shit hive since 2005.
This happens every time a new map comes out.
A dozen people cry IMBA, MARINES ALWAYS WIN
A dozen people cry IMBA, ALIENS ALWAYS WIN
Eventually everyone calms the fuck down and realises the 'IMBA' is due to a huge difference of skill between teams, and that eclipse is a fun map to play on.
However, IMO it's already pretty obvious that due to the "hardcore" nature of the map, næb servers will easily be alien-win-dominated there. The game is already skewed heavily towards aliens the more you move towards nöb on the performance scale, and that map adds extremely short distances to that.
I really want to see some high-level play on this map, is it going to be part of ENSL rotation?
Well i guess because I'm really good at this game most likely I'm carrying my team to victory.
The exits of Marine Start are alien favored, come on.
By saying that Marines have to be aggressive and that most pub player lack this personality admits the map is somewhat flawed. I personally love aggressive play and try to communicate with my team to persist the aggressive play because the best defense is a good offense. But more than not, whether its rookies, players who don't like aggressive play, or just players that don't listen worth a crap, Marines usually get stomped. I've won a few games on the Marine team but I can't recall losing as an alien yet.
However, if pub players would pay attention to the long corridors and natural choke points of the map (there are plenty), Marines would fare much better. But then we come full circle with the argument that most pubs players are usually just casual players who just want to play for fun and not be super competitive. So, what you gonna do? You can't please everyone.
+1 for the South Park reference.
I don't think the imbalance will last though. Marines always lost Veil until they figured out not to suicide nano. Eclipse just needs some basic strategy to trickle through the pubs and marines will win more, unless the server is mostly green.
My only problem with the map lies with the straight hallway where the res tower SHOULD BE At horseshoe. guis. wtf is dis.
In testing, for months, maintenance starting hive always lost that RT to marines who would just sprint there directly at round start. (one of the reasons maintenance starting hive was deemed imbalanced and not worth gathering data on, so we'd reset whenever starting there)
The hallway between horseshoe and keyhole that u turns south was specifically made to slow this down, and allow aliens a chance to defend their natural RT.
But, that wide empty hallway just before the RT is still death to most aliens who step in it, so just plan accordingly. (read: bait them)
And I spend a lot of time talking rookies through the game.
COuld be bad luck, even me playing all those eclipse matches is nothing compared to the ns2 population.
But rookies at the least pickup ns2 play a lot slower in eclipse, as marines.
I hope the map gets reworked. It looks astonishing and performance is better than biodome. However if things stay like this it will be removed from map rotations of various servers (already been removed on the one I mostly play), or skipped like Mineshaft.